Recent Movies and Alan Partridge (Reply)

I've seen a few movies. Saw Sherlock Holmes and really enjoyed it. I spend the movie thinking to myself 'they're just like House and Wilson' and then realising I was failing because the comparison should be the other way round. I also couldn't help but think that the movie would have been improved by the presence of Jason Statham or Vinnie Jones.

Also saw The Lovely Bones. I know it's been getting mixed reviews but absolutely I loved it. I haven't read the book (been meaning too for years, but just never got around to it) so I can't compare, but what I really loved about it was that it gave teenage girls a lot of power. Teenage girls don't feature in thrillers except to be victims (with the exception of another Peter Jackson film, Heavenly Creatures) – and okay, this does not entirely change that, but by following the impact of the death of one victim of a serial killer and rapist, it treats the victim as more than just a cheap and faceless motive to drive some angsty detective – and the person who her death does drive is her little sister. Though the film is not really a true thriller anyway, it's thriller mixed with a bit of fantasy/horror and a lot of family drama.

In terms of Peter Jackson's films, I also see it as something as a sequel to Heavenly Creatures. After all, Heavenly Creatures has teenage girls creating a fantasy world, taking up residence and then murdering to protect it. The Lovely Bones has a teenage girl murdered and taking up residence in a sort-of fantasy world which is how she creates it.

In the absence of the Thick of It, I've been checking out the creators and actors past work and discovered Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge, which is utterly hilarious. It's a chat show in which everything that can go wrong, goes wrong and the host is a basically a narcissistic idiot. Alan Partridge is of course Steve Coogan who had a cameo in In the Loop, but the Thick of It connections really come from the show being co-created and co-written by Armando Iannucci and Rebecca Front appears in every episode playing a different guest.

The scene you all have to watch, and my favourite part of the whole series is the Abba medley (or why Steve Coogan didn't get a part in Mama-Mia).

I'm going to check out I'm Alan Partridge next.

And on the subject of The Thick of It, I have somehow convinced myself that the future of the show will be announced shortly after Gordon Brown calls the election – there's nothing to support this conviction of mine, but I can't help but get impatient with him about the election calling, particularly after events this week, since the PM in The Thick of It called the election specifically to quell dissension in the ranks and stop a leadership coup.